Skullduggery Pleasant (Audiobook) by Stephen Edgley

Skullduggery Pleasant is essentially your average kind of detective; he is smart, smart mouthed, observant, has a gun and a habit of breaking laws “for the greater good.”  Yep, he’s pretty normal…

Except he is a skeleton, with someone else’s head.

Oh, and he throws fireballs and studies magic.

 But he does drive a classic car, a Bentley in fact, and that is seemingly mandatory for your average literary detective.

When Stephanie’s beloved Uncle Gordon dies he leaves her the house.  Upon her first night staying there she is attacked by a strange man asking for a key, which she has no clue of.  Fortunately, before he can kill her, Skullduggery Pleasant kicks down the door and saves the day… or night that is.

As a result, Stephanie insists on joining Skullduggery on his quest to find out who killed her Uncle and what this supposed key is which people are so keen to kill for.  Each step brings her deeper into a world of magic and danger, a world that she may never return from.

All in all, it was a pretty fun listen.  The narrator, Rupert Degas, does a great job with voice characterizations and narration.  The plot itself was alright as the “twists” were somewhat obvious, but even figuring out the mystery didn’t take away from the enjoyment.  I was still more than willing to listen to Degas’ expressive abilities that really brought the characters alive… no pun intended, of course.

As an avid listener of audiobooks, I’ve lately found more unlistenable productions than I care to admit.  Skullduggery renews my enjoyment of audiobooks as it shows what a great job can be done when the production budget is there and an enthusiastic narrator takes hold of the book and breathes life into the story.

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